.jpg)
Jan. 29, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette, The Biden administration’s policies which invest in creating high paying jobs for the middle class has brought us back from the brink of “certain” recession. Salaries now outpace inflation (which has dropped below prepandemic, Trump era levels) and consumers are spending, making the U.S. economy one of the strongest in the world.
Having lost this as an issue, the GOP now focuses heavily on immigration. So heavily, in fact, that they are willing to abandon a bi-partisan deal to address it for fear that it will leave them with nothing to campaign on.
The proposed bill would likely include Biden’s request for an additional 1,300 border patrol agents, 375 immigration judges, 1,600 asylum officers, and over 100 cutting-edge inspection machines to detect fentanyl. It would also provide the president with emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed, which Biden says he would do the day he signs the bill. In exchange, we would continue to provide Ukraine with what they desperately need to stave off Putin’s aggression.
But, giving Republicans what they have been demanding doesn’t seem to be enough. As soon as Trump uttered his opposition, most of them jumped ship from the deal. Many have admitted that they need to be able to blame Biden for ongoing immigration problems. The right-leaning Wall Street Journal editorialized that if the GOP, “gives up on a border security bill …. President Biden would claim, with cause, that Republicans want border chaos as an election issue rather than solving the problem.”
A voter can only be left to wonder how much they ever really cared about it to begin with. ANNETTE GREEN Rockbridge County
